“You might be the only bank in the country with these pens attached to the desk,” I said, yanking it. “Is the stationery that valuable?”
“Fam, did you hear how I have to switch up my voice out there? The new manager, some prissy white woman, has told me that I need to speak ‘better.’ Doesn’t want me to ‘intimidate customers.’ Can you believe that? The only person I’m intimidating is her, fam.” Kyazike kissed her teeth. “This shit gets on my nerves.” She sat opposite me. “Anyway, what’s good?”
“Hanging,” I groaned. “For the first time in ages.”
“That’ll teach you.” Kyazike laughed. “So how was it, then? Was the beating from your grandma worth it?”
“My date with Balding Alpha?” I winced at her volume and at the memory. “Proper racist. He said some very questionable things last night.”
“Huh?” Kyazike furrowed her brow. “Like what?”
“At one point he asked if I agreed that young black women got pregnant just so they could get council houses, to which I obviously asked if he’d taken something—”
“Tell me you’re joking, fam.”
“I wish I was. He said all sorts of things that made me want to set his house on fire!” Kyazike clenched her fist. “And do you know what, this all began when he accused me of being a ‘Black Lives Matter girl.’?”
“This is making me so fucking mad—do you want me to get some black boys to run up in his house, raid the ting?” Kyazike offered.
“No, no!”
“?’Cause then he’ll know that black lives matter, trust me.”
“No, that’ll give him justification to keep on thinking that we’re all aggressive. But thank you.” I patted her on the hand. “I just don’t know where it came from. All of his texts were so tame!”
“I fucking hate chiefs like him. He knew what he was doing, you know, it’s calculated. I’ve heard about guys like him. White guys who like to bait black girls, use them for what they want, then humiliate them. I bet he waited until getting you drunk and back to his house to start with his Jim Crow nonsense. He did, innit?” I nodded, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, fam. I know you thought this one was a good one.”
“I did, I did,” I sighed, rubbing my temples. “But if anyone was going to get back on the dating horse and end up in the house of a neo-Nazi, it was going to be me.”
“Queenie. He might have been a neo-Nazi, but all men are trash, innit.” Kyazike shrugged. “At least this might finally stop you from dating white guys.”
chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
AFTER TRYING AND failing to convince my grandmother that my hangover was a mysterious illness, I’ve been on some sort of adult grounding for the last three weeks. I’ve been allowed to go to work and come home, and do my usual million chores at the weekend. There was a new and exciting development that hadn’t actually benefited me at all, my grandparents were converts to believing that actual mental health illnesses exist, and have thrown the term relapse at me a million times.
Today, though, I was free, and to celebrate, I was going to go to the cinema on my own after work.
The working day was getting easier. Not in the way of a Karate Kid wax on-wax off–style, improving-by-the-hour montage or anything, only that I didn’t want to run screaming from the building now. And, if I kept this up, with the money from my mum, I could think about renting somewhere. I could live on my own, which will obviously come with huge adjustment hurdles, but, crucially, those issues could be overcome.
The perks of behaving properly at my job and actually doing the work meant that I was actually having to do more stuff because my colleagues and bosses were seeing me as a responsible professional human. Determined to get to the 6 p.m. showing after work, I battled through and left only an hour late. The lift doors opened for me to go down and I stepped in, and looked up.
“Queenie!” Ted looked frightened to see me. “Have a nice evening,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He ran his hands through his hair agitatedly.
I turned to step out, but the doors closed before I could. I kept my mouth shut and stood as far away from him as I could, practically becoming one with the metal walls. I could hear him breathing loudly, rapidly. I looked over quickly. He was sweating. We got to the ground floor and I shot out, throwing my security pass at the barriers and crossing the foyer at the speed of light.
I escaped from the building and, when I was sure that he couldn’t see me, sat on a bit of wall. My chest tightened, and I could feel the first swoops of panic. I closed my eyes and breathed in for three seconds, then out for eleven. Panic was coming at me in choppy waves. My legs began to shake, so I leaned onto them with my elbows to keep them still. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter and tried to remember my safe space. My arms started to shake so much that my elbows slipped off my thighs.
I sat up and opened my eyes. Why wasn’t this working? I looked ahead. Ted was in front of me. Far away, but close enough for us to see each other. Next to him, a woman. She was turned away from me, so all I could see was that she was blond, and wide-set. Ted turned on his heel so that I was looking at both of their backs. I couldn’t look away. He put his arm around the blond woman and tried to steer her away. “Where are we going?” I heard her ask.
“We need to go this way!” he said.
“But the Tube station is this way!” she said, turning around and looking past me. I was hardly anything of significance. What was of significance to me, though, was that her stomach swelled outward and her hands caressed a very sizable bump lovingly.
THE CORGIS
Kyazike
I’d wanna know, if I was her
Kyazike
Rather be single than married to a cheat who was fucking about when I was pregnant
Darcy
I feel sorry for her, but imagine how bad Queenie would feel if the revelation sent his wife into premature labor?
Kyazike
Can you at least get him fired?
Queenie
But that would mean throwing myself under the bus with him
“Queenie.” My chair was turned around and I came eye-to-eye with Gina. “Eyes on the computer, not the phone,” she said, spinning my chair back around so that I was facing my screen. “Don’t let me down. Please.”
“Sorry, Gina, no, I’m not. I wouldn’t,” I whispered after her.
I did actual work for the rest of the day with only one very small break to set up a flat viewing, asking for one of the women estate agents to show me around this time and arranging to bring Kyazike with me. Is this what growing into an adult woman is—having to predict and accordingly arrange for the avoidance of sexual harassment?
I started to pack my bag at five, ready to meet Kyazike before the viewing as soon as it hit five-thirty. By now I was well versed in estate agents showing you the place with ten other people waiting to go in after you, and I was determined to get there first.
On my way back from the loo pre-leaving, I saw Ted lurking by the kitchen and sped up to get to my desk. By 5:31, I was in the lift. I walked out of the building and smack-bang into him, his eyes red-rimmed and his usually pristine every-strand-has-a-place hair a mess. He took a sharp drag of his cigarette and pulled it from his mouth. “Please, let me speak to you,” he said, his voice wavering. He snatched at my arm with a free hand.
“Fuck off,” I growled, trying to pull my arm out of his grip. He was stronger than he looked.
“Let me talk to you. I need to explain, please. I need to do this.”
“Exactly! You need to do this for you, it’s not about me,” I said, panic rising again. “It’s always about you. I’ve only ever been a need for you to fulfill, I realize that now. Please leave me alone. If you don’t let go of me, I’ll scream.”
“Sorry.” He let go of my arm. “Don’t you see, this is what you do to me!”
“No, it’s not me doing anything. It’s you, you get fixated on things and you’re consumed by the latest source of excitement until you get what you want from it, Ted.” I was so frustrated that I could have burst into tears on the spot. “Fuck off!”